Fightlinker Ryan’s UFC 84 picks are up, and all of a sudden I’m feeling a whole lot less nervous about this whole ipecac-drinking thing. Not only did Ryan pick Tito and Wandy to win their bouts, but he also gave the nod to Reljic over Gouveia, and Koppenhaver over Yoshida. Feel free to head over to FL to point and laugh, or get re-acquainted with my own UFC 84 predictions here.

One final note: I haven’t puked in like twelve years. Maybe more, I don’t really remember. But it’s been a long time, and I don’t look forward to doing it again.

Or at least he was, back in February. This newly unearthed clip from RawVegas.tv catches Coleman saying he’d drop to 205 to avoid fighting the Big Les. Damn…the promise of a big payday will make a person do crazy things. Good luck, buddy!

(The cover of ESPN: The Magazine’s new issue.)

“I’m a streetfighter and I love streetfighters. It’s great to have other leagues. UFC can’t have everyone. There’s thousands of fighters out there and they need a chance to make a living. Me, I’m a Kimbo Slice fan. I like fighting. I see where Dana is coming from and I respect his opinion, but I like streetfighting.” — B.J. Penn

“The amount of talent and fights we put on are second to none. Think about it, the CBS fight that they are coming up with, who gives a crap about Kimbo Slice? This guy can’t fight MMA. You know what would happen if he fought in the UFC? I’d put him in against BJ Penn and (Slice) would get annihilated. The guy he is fighting, James Thompson, might get knocked out before he gets into the cage. Kimbo has no credibility at all in MMA. … I am telling you, BJ Penn would beat him.” — Dana White

“I still consider myself a baby at this game…Those guys probably know how to run circles around me, but I can bang with the best. And I’m not a one-dimensional fighter anymore. I used to have just a hammer. But now I’ve got a hammer, a tape measure, a screwdriver, a glue gun. Now I’ve got some tools in the belt.” — Kimbo Slice

(Props: BloodyElbow)

(Barnett elaborates on his plan to “hug Pedro to death.”)

There may not have been much in the way of new information at this morning’s Afflcition press conference, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a good time. Especially not when Josh Barnett and Donald Trump are both there. Not only did Trump have plenty of bottles of “Trump Ice” — his official bottled water — laying around, he also joked with some of the fighters during the event before quietly disappearing along with his son.

“The Babyfaced Assassin” stole the show, however, entertaining reporters and fans by reenacting his knockout loss to Pedro Rizzo in 2001. Standing on a stage with some of the biggest names in the heavyweight division, Barnett didn’t miss the opportunity to remark on the magnitude of the fight card.

“You can have the biggest buzz, the biggest stage, the biggest fireworks, but it’s up to us to provide the bang,” said Barnett, who got a rousing ovation from the fans gathered in Trump Tower to witness the event.

When announcer Jay Glazer attempting to retake the microphone by beginning an analogy comparing MMA and sports like basketball and football, Barnett couldn’t help but burst back in.

“I’m not even going to make the ‘playing with balls’ joke,” he said. “I’ll just say that you play football, you play basketball…You don’t play fighting. There’s no playing going on. When you get to this level, you really get to know yourself…and your opponents get to find out who you are.”

(BF)
(BG)

Fowlkes and I spend a lot of time pondering and writing about MMA. Often, we disagree. With that in mind, we’d like to present the first installment of a new feature where we argue about the topics of the day — in this case, all the major themes coming out of Saturday’s UFC 84. This one’s actually a two-parter; come back tomorrow for spirited debate on Wanderlei Silva’s future, the necessity of ring girls, and the intensity of BJ Penn and Sean Sherk’s personal relationship.

***

QUESTION: What will be the best fight of UFC 84?

Goldstein: The best fight of a given event generally starts with a large dose of drama and ends with a decisive finish. Penn/Sherk has drama out its ass — these guys hate each other — and Ortiz/Machida has it too, as it’s Ortiz’s last fight, and one that Dana White desperately wants him to lose. But I wouldn’t bank on Ortiz/Machida to be a particularly exciting match. Both fighters are questionable finishers (five of Machida’s last seven matches have gone to a decision, compared to four of Ortiz’s last seven) and before his punking of Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou, Machida was widely thought to be a boring fighter. The UFC set this match up to make Ortiz look less marketable, and it isn’t likely to be a barn-burner.

As for Penn and Sherk — how can this be anything less than legendary? Penn tends to make any fight exciting, and both guys will be looking to finish. Penn has to exploit his striking advantage and avoid being laid on by Sherk; a dull fight is not in Penn’s best interest, strategically speaking. I think Sherk is too tough to get stopped earlier than the third round, and if the fight goes into the championship rounds, his conditioning advantage will kick in. So Penn has this sweet spot of the third round where he’s most likely to win, and as the minutes and rounds tick by, anticipation will amp up the drama even further. If BJ wins, he’ll be the UFC’s undisputed lightweight ruler, and his reaction could be just as memorable as the fight itself.

Fowlkes: While I agree with your preconditions for what makes a great fight, I don’t necessarily think it will be Penn-Sherk that turns in the best performance of the night. Seems to me that you’re forgetting about Wanderlei Silva/Keith Jardine. That has plenty of drama — Silva needs a win badly and Jardine needs something to force the UFC to stop overlooking him — and it features two guys who like to stand and bang, which always yields great potential for a decisive finish.

On top of that, when’s the last time you saw Wanderlei in a boring fight? Tell me. I demand to know. I think Sherk-Penn will be worth the pay-per-view price alone, but Silva-Jardine is going to produce some fireworks either way, my friend.

Here’s the latest video of Tito Ortiz talking and talking and talking. Along the way, he calls Dana White a “money hungry, tryin’ to be superstar,” a “wannabe gangster,” and a “jazzercise trainer,” calls Chuck Liddell a “puppet,” and denies that he’s a moron and a retard. You’ll have to judge for yourself.

(Props: Sherdog via MMA Fever)

(“The foulest stench is in the air / the funk of 40,000 years / And grisly ghouls from every tomb / are closing in to seal your doom.”)

Every Thursday morning, Team Rampage member Gerald Harris blogs his reactions to each new episode of The Ultimate Fighter 7 on CagePotato.com. Here’s what he had to say about last night’s ep, in which CB Dollaway got his first inevitable win and the quarterfinal matchups were announced.

***

Let me start by apologizing for not speaking on the Yarbrough-Schultz fight in last week’s blog. I was really going through some things — it’s hard to walk around knowing the outcome of the show and holding it from your friends and family. You’re drowned with questions and angry people wanting to know what happened, and also claiming to know the outcome. Last week was a shock to a lot of people close to me but not to many outside of that circle. I learned a lot from the experience and took the loss as motivation. I was also mistaken on my words threatening to hurt Amir after the bout. I was being very sarcastic and I’m very humble about the incident.

Now, it was no surprise that CB was fighting Nick Klein this week. The only surprise was “who the hell is Nick Klein?” Well, let me fill you in. Klein is a tough dude — we were actually respecting him a lot, because he was very quiet in the house. Quiet people are unpredictable and are usually hiding something…like talent. Klein had a lot of it and even earned the name “Killa Klein” for his random funny outbursts. I hate to use the word “underdog” on this show because we’re all at the bottom of the mountain trying to become UFC fighters. In this case even Klein felt like an underdog because of CB’s high profile and #1 pick status from Rampage.

Most of you already know about CB. I didn’t know much about him other than his great wrestling before the show, but I would soon find out about his grappling and Muay Thai skills. I thought that he was just another wrestler, but after training with him I noticed that he was well rounded. He hits hard as hell, has great subs, and he’s meaner than a muthaf*$#a when it’s time to fight. He has this alter ego called the “DOBERMAN” and I saw that as he entered the cage.

(Joana Prado, Vitor Belfort’s lady.)

While perusing the internet for interesting MMA stories today, Ariel Helwani at MMA Rated alerted me to an article in The Sun (UK) about the sexiest “WAGs” in MMA. If, like me, you’re unsure what a WAG is, it stands for wives and girlfriends. Apparently, a popular thing to do in Britain is to ogle the love interests of soccer stars (or “footballers”) and argue about who’s got the hotter girlfriend. I guess you have to pass the time somehow when you don’t have the death penalty.

After checking out the list, which has its share of errors (as Ariel points out), I was struck by how similar all the women seemed. Not necessarily similar in the sense of interchangeable. God knows Forrest Griffin’s girlfriend is more attractive than, say, Tim Sylvia’s or Joe Rogan’s, which only makes me think that the universe is indeed a just place.

But at the same time they all had a certain, how should I put this, quality about them. It’s the kind of quality that makes you look at them and feel pretty sure that if they haven’t done some type of porn (Jenna Jameson, Joana Prado, etc.), they at least consider the girls in Playboy as role models of some sort.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone has their own tastes. I guess what I’m saying is it seems kind of remarkable how fighters all go for the same kind of girl. Is it something in their genetic makeup and they can’t help it?

What about the girls they dated before they were famous and semi-wealthy? Were they the same type of girl, just a little further down on the spectrum, like maybe they had a weird mole on their face or cheaper hair extensions? Do the women get better looking as your record and fight purse improves? Do they get smarter? More fun to be around?

(If I had a face like that, I’d want to protect it while I kicked. Just saying.)

With UFC 84 this Saturday, Elite XC may be having some minor difficulty getting people worked up for their show the following weekend, but they still do a pretty good job of wooing the press. Fortunately, Combat Lifestyle was on the scene of a press conference on the CBS lot to show off some Elite XC stars, such as Gina Carano, Kimbo Slice, and the other fighters they have who are not Gina Carano or Kimbo Slice.

If you’re wondering whether Gary Shaw wore some type of tracksuit-like outfit for this thing, well, you already know the answer. If you need to see it for yourself, here are some thumbnails of the more interesting/stranger moments. Go here for more.

On Monday, Masakazu Imanari lost his DEEP featherweight title to Dokonjonosuke Mishima, who had dropped his last two fights to Kenny Florian and Joe Stevenson in the UFC. I guess this negates all the nice things we’ve said about Imanari. But as you can see, Mishima’s celebratory backflip didn’t go so well. The dude should take lessons from Krazy Horse. And now that I have your attention, here’s the slickest highlight video I’ve seen all week, courtesy of MMAScraps.
(Update: Wow, if that’s playing like garbage for you too, just go here.)

(Listen, buddy: win first, skanks later.)

As promised yesterday — here are the final picks I’m making for my ipecac bet with Ryan of Fightlinker. Will they be enough for me to avoid vomity humiliation? Well, Ryan has mentioned that he’s predicting Wanderlei Silva and Tito Ortiz will win their bouts, and I don’t see the rest of his choices being any less duhtarded. We’ll be scoring this on the three-point system: one point for calling the winning fighter, and additional points for correctly calling the method of victory (one point) and round (one point). How fun! My picks are below; feel free to debate them in the comments section. — Ben G.

MAIN CARD
B.J. Penn def. Sean Sherk via submission, 3rd round : I went over this in my UFC 84 gambling guide. Fowlkes made some good points yesterday, but I still think Sherk is going out like Joe Stevenson, with a bloody face and an arm around his neck. Just because Sherk’s two losses didn’t come via submission doesn’t mean that he’s unsubmittable, especially against someone as talented as Penn.

Keith Jardine def. Wanderlei Silva via decision: I also went over this in the gambling guide. (By the way, if you want to see a short video version of me making those exact same points, check out this clip from CombatWire.com.) Jardine was able to outsmart Chuck Liddell when they fought, and Wanderlei Silva is basically a dumber version of Chuck. I think the most logical pick is another decision win for Jardine.

Wilson Gouveia def. Goran Reljic via KO/TKO, 2nd round: I don’t like to pick against guys with undefeated records, but that rule shouldn’t apply when a fighter has less than eight pro fights, and Reljic (7-0) has beaten absolutely nobody you’ve ever heard of. I wouldn’t assume that Gouveia’s ground skills are necessarily better than Reljic’s, but I can see him catching the Croatian with a heavy shot, Lambert-style. Also, betting against the American Top Team is generally a bad move.

Lyoto Machida def. Tito Ortiz via decision: Machida isn’t a fight-finisher, and unless he’s in the cage with Ken Shamrock, Tito really isn’t either. But Machida is far more well-rounded, and his tendency to take his opponents out of their rhythm is well-documented. I’m very confident that Machida will win, and he could easily do it via TKO or submission, but given the recent fight histories of these two, a decision feels likely.

Thiago Silva def. Antonio Mendes via KO/TKO, 2nd round: Undefeated record + UFC experience + ATT = a total lock. Eight of Thiago Silva’s 12 wins have come via first-round stoppage; ten come via KO/TKO. The only advantage that Brazilian UFC newcomer Antonio Mendes has is that he’s 3-0 against guys named Silva. He is a hard-ass, though, and I don’t foresee a steamrolling. I say Mendes gets through round one, shaken but not quite out.

As for the undercard…

(Lindland’s campaign promise of a chicken in every pot and a pinch of Skoal in every lip seems to be resonating with Oregon voters.)

Looks like Matt “The Law” Lindland’s political campaign has some legs. Despite enduring an utterly pathetic smear campaign and taking some cheap shots at the MMA media, Lindland was victorious in the Republican primary, defeating Phyllis Thiemann to become the nominee, reports The Oregonian.

This means Lindland will move on to face Democrat Suzanne Van Orman in the contest to decide who will represent the Oregon House’s 52nd District. While we don’t know anything about Van Orman as a candidate, we advise her to look the fuck out. Lindland ain’t playin’.

Potential strategies for Van Orman may include highlighting Lindland’s complete lack of experience, portraying herself as the change candidate, and possibly grabbing the ropes to avoid takedowns.

If she really wants to go negative, there’s always this damning video evidence of Lindland’s poor decision-making skills. Watch the whole thing if you’re a glutton for punishment, or skip to 3:17 to see Lindland’s main contribution.

(As a side note, this really makes recent news of the IFL’s slow demise seem long overdue, doesn’t it?)

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.com)

Yesterday’s Affliction press conference in Los Angeles had plenty of big news and no small amount of overpriced t- shirts, but perhaps most interesting was the official announcement that the undercard of the July 19 event will air live on Fox Sports Net, as previously rumored.

FSN Executive VP George Greenberg was on hand to announce the deal, as well as the old-news bouts featuring Paul Buentello vs. Aleksander Emelianenko and Savant Young vs. Mark Hominick. The Young-Hominick bout has great potential, particularly now that Young’s star is on the rise following his victory over Takeshi Inoue in Shooto earlier this month.

Honda Center President and CEO Tim Ryan was also on hand to announce that the event had already sold $250,000 in tickets during the first half-hour of public sales, and added that he expected it to sell out before all is said and done. No word yet on just how many tickets they sold to reach the quarter of a million mark, but these are all encouraging early signs for Affliction.

In case you’re wondering whether the rumored Arlovski-Rothwell bout was announced, it wasn’t. Not yet anyway. Could the UFC still be negotiating to keep Arlovski? We’ll have to wait and see, but Cage Potato will be at the Trump Tower for tomorrow morning’s press conference to see what we can find out. Will we come back with a sick new Affliction t-shirt that accentuates our tribal arm-band tattoos? Again, wait and see.

On Monday, we mentioned that Anderson Silva pulled out of a scheduled two-day seminar at Miletich Fighting Systems Houston due to “personal family health issues,” but was seen in Miami the same weekend at the grand opening of his own school. At the time, we were like “LOL EPIC PHAIL!” Well, it ain’t so funny anymore. As Sherdog reports, Silva’s aunt — who raised him from his youth, and who he thought of as his mother — passed away on Monday. According to a source close to the UFC middleweight champ:

Silva was already in Miami for the opening ceremonies of his gym. He learned of his aunt’s condition on Friday and tried to leave for Brazil on Saturday morning, but there were no flights. He then went to his gym for a few hours before flying to Curitiba in the evening.

So Anderson, we’re incredibly sorry — both for your tremendous loss and for the fact that we’re tremendous assholes.

(His tattoo is watching even when he’s not. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Yesterday evening, the UFC announced that a broken foot has forced James Irvin to pull out from his UFC 85 match against Rashad Evans. Though UFC.com first reported that Luiz Cane would be stepping up to replace Irvin, a finalized card was released shortly after, which didn’t include Evans at all. The undercard fight between Nate Marquardt and Thales Leites has now been moved to the main pay-per-view card.

Anyway, that’s a bummer — I had high hopes for the Irvin/Evans match-up, as their conflicting styles could have produced some exciting results. But Evans is better off not being on the card at this point. Having to train for another new opponent (he was originally slated to fight Chuck Liddell) wouldn’t be fair to him with less than a month until the show, and historically, situations like that tend not to go well. Still, how cursed is this card? First it was Mauricio Rua with an injured knee. Then Liddell with a torn hammy. Then Chris Leben with his probation violation. Good Lord, is the O2 Arena built on an Indian burial ground or something?

In other UFC news:

— Early reports have UFC 88 slated for September 6th in Atlanta, GA. It would be the first time the UFC was held in the state of Georgia since UFC 13 in May 1997.

— TUF 6 alum Blake Bowman (remember, the guy who Mac Danzig used to mercilessly make fun of?) won his professional MMA debut on Friday, at the same event that produced the already-legendary double-K.O. involving Tyler Bryan and Shaun Parker. Facing Kevin Walker, who was also making his professional debut, Bowman won a TKO victory in just eight seconds, landing a head kick right at the bell and following it up with a punch that put Walker out.

— According to recent announcements and promotional materials, Brock Lesnar vs. Mark Coleman will not be the official main event of UFC 87. Could a headlining title fight be possible? GSP and Anderson Silva don’t have anything scheduled yet…

(‘You’re getting to be such a big boy. Pretty soon I won’t be able to do this anymore.’)

I realize the headline has some of you worked up into a frenzy, but just give me a chance to explain. B.J. Penn is a wonderfully gifted fighter. Let’s start there. In fact, let’s go further. B.J. Penn is a truly great fighter, easily one of the best lightweights in the world. Most of the other guys in the lightweight top ten would stand little chance against him, and the same goes for a few of the guys in the welterweight top ten.

I don’t think Sean Sherk is objectively a better fighter than B.J. Penn. I do, however, think that Sean Sherk can beat B.J. Penn on Saturday night, and I’d like to explain why.

Styles make fights. It’s a cliché, but it’s true. So much in MMA is dependent on how one man’s style matches up against another’s, and Sherk is a bad match for Penn.

If there’s any type of fighter Penn has struggled against, it’s wrestlers. Matt Hughes and Georges St. Pierre were both bigger and stronger than Penn, but they are also both excellent wrestlers, and they both beat Penn by outworking and outlasting him. You can give him a pass for having a broken rib or bad cardio in those fights, but the blame for both of those problems rests with Penn.

Another day, another Gina Carano video interview where she wears a funny little hat to accentuate how attractive she is. You know, no big deal. The interesting thing here is that she doesn’t shy away from talking about how filming American Gladiators has negatively affected her training for the May 31 Elite XC bout. She doesn’t seem too worried about it. As they say, pride goeth before an ass-whipping on live network TV.

In other news…

- Sherdog reports that Affliction has officially announced the bout between Paul Buentello and Aleksander Emelianenko on the July 19 fight card, as well as the signing of Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, the younger brother of the UFC champ. No word yet on who Nogueira will fight or what will be done with Buentello’s body following the bout, though one assumes that Emelianenko will keep it as a trophy for at least a couple of days.

- Demian Maia and Jason MacDonald will both get a step up in competition when they face each other at UFC 87 in August, says MMA Mania. Both are coming off impressive wins, and the UFC has done well to put this match-up on the undercard of the Brock Lesnar-Mark Coleman show, which will also feature a lightweight bout between Kenny Florian and Roger Huerta. Go on and say you aren’t ordering that pay-per-view. You’re kidding yourself.

Three weeks ago, I entered a devil’s wager with Fightlinker.com, in which Ryan Harkness and I would go head-to-head in predicting the results of this Saturday’s UFC 84, with the loser having to do something awful. After reviewing the reader suggestions on CP and FL — which ran the gamut from permanently scarring to financially unfeasible (good effort anyway, guys!) — we both decided on something simple. The loser will have to put up a video of themselves drinking ipecac. To illustrate ipecac’s gruesome effects, Fightlinker posted this video. Wa-wa-wee-wa. Needless to say, I really don’t want to lose. So if you have any inside info/messages from God regarding Saturday’s fights, hollatchaboy in the comments section. I’ll post my official picks tomorrow.

(BG)

Also: FL found some amusing CBS Saturday Night Fights promos starring Kevin Ferguson himself. You simply must watch them after the jump.

(Photo courtesy of MySpace.com/triggonomics.)

Frank Trigg is a one-man industry. How many other fighters can claim to train in a gym they own, show up to fight in a shirt they designed, then talk about it the next day on their own radio show? In this exclusive interview, the man behind Triggonomics, TAGG Radio, the R1 Training Center, a handful of truly bizarre TV appearances — as well as some legendary beatdowns in the UFC, PRIDE and Icon Sport — gives us the “Twinkle Toes” perspective on fighter branding, reality television, and why he would kick Robbie Lawler’s ass in a rematch.

***

CAGEPOTATO.COM: Let’s get this out of the way first: Who, where, and when are you fighting next?
FRANK TRIGG: I don’t know yet. I thought I was going to have something set up and ready to announce this week, but we don’t have anything finalized.

But you are still actively pursuing your fight career, right? It’s not like your five other jobs are getting in the way…
Absolutely, I’m trying to get as many fights as I can. I was trying to be in the DREAM middleweight tournament, but it didn’t work out.

You told MMAJunkie that doing that tournament wouldn’t benefit your brand. What exactly did you mean by that?
That’s really what all of us are trying to do — Chuck Liddell, Roger Huerta, Georges St. Pierre — all of us are trying to brand ourselves to a big enough name that we can make money outside of the fight world, and I have to make choices on what’s going to help me accomplish that. Doing commentating for TNA Wrestling helps me as a brand — it pushes me forward, it gets me in front of a different demographic and increases the size of my network. And when you’re with an organization that’s not going to do that for you, whatever level you’re at, it doesn’t help.

DREAM was waiting and screwing around, and I was trying to figure out whether or not the tournament was going to be shown in America on HDNet. They finally agreed to a deal like three days before the event, and I thought “that’s just stupid, they should have had this stuff done a long time ago.” The way that they’re running the organization, it just wasn’t going to be any good for me in trying to get my brand out there.

Do you think you’ll still try to deal with DREAM? Their fight-booking process seems disorganized at times, to say the least.
I would have gone back to them, but somebody sent me a link to a story in the Japanese press where they said I was a liar and that I agreed to do the tournament but backed out. I’m not going to work with someone who’s going to call me a liar. It’s not gonna happen.

(Firing ring girls is one thing, but experienced executives aren’t just hanging out at the local Hooters.)

It’s no secret that the IFL is in financial trouble, but two recent cuts to the IFL’s operations staff are a sign that the end may be near.

MMA Payout reports that Keith Evans, IFL VP of Operations, and Lisa Faircloth, Director of Events, have both been let go. This is a significant blow to the IFL’s Las Vegas office, which handles the bulk of event operations and includes tasks like signing fighters and organizing live events.

Both Evans and Faircloth are former Zuffa employees. Evans played a role in Zuffa’s initial lawsuit against the IFL, with Zuffa alleging that he gave away trade secrets. While it might be a stretch to say that both are absolutely essential to the IFL’s staff, it isn’t a stretch to say that they are essential to the IFL putting on a strong event any time in the coming months. A VP of Operations isn’t so easily replaced, especially an experienced veteran of the MMA wars like Evans. Faircloth held together much of the Vegas staff, and her departure is said to have other IFL Operations employees sending out resumes as fast as they can print them off.

This could be a sign that the IFL is considering drastically scaling back their live event operations in the near future, if not closing their Las Vegas office altogether. If that’s the case, it makes you wonder what the IFL’s plan is over the long term. It seems as if they may be counting on finding a buyer soon, and are content to wait it out without losing any more money on events in the meantime.

Then again, you know what they call an MMA organization that doesn’t put on fights? A place where you can buy a really cheap six-sided ring.

(Look out society.)

UFC middleweight Chris Leben has been sprung from the pokey, according to a blog entry on his MySpace page and a report from MMA Mania. Leben was scheduled to stay in jail until May 27, but was released over the weekend to finish out his sentence under ‘home detention.’ Some guy named Adam with access to Leben’s MySpace page explains it all:

LEBEN HAS BEEN RELEASED!

Hello all,

Chris has been released from jail over the weekend. This is all the information I have right now and I’ll be sure to update everyone on his resolved legal issues, immediate plans and the expected date of his next match after Chris gets everything organized.

He thanks you again for your patience and understanding and Chris will be posting here as soon as he can.

Thanks.

- Adam

Oh, MySpace. You have so many useful functions. I can hear of a pro fighter’s release from jail and discover that a guy I knew in high school broke up with his girlfriend, all without actually having to communicate with another human being. What a time to be alive.

At least ‘home detention’ doesn’t sound so bad. Leben can get back to eating right and doing some light training for the day when the UFC is ready to take a chance on him again. That, or microwave a Hungry Man dinner and play Madden all day. Either way, it beats the hell out of jail.

From PRIDE Critical Countdown 2005 (6/26/2005). Because not much is going on this morning and I’ve been wanting to run the fight that produced this:

From Sakuraba’s divebomb attacks in the first round, to Arona’s relentless knees, to the “holy shit” moment when the second frame is over and Saku’s roadkill-face emerges, it’s a minor classic. Enjoy.

(Randy Couture: Even his cauliflower ear is smiling.)

Yesterday, the District Court of Dallas County, Texas, denied three motions filed by Zuffa to stay, delay, and/or dismiss HDNet’s challenge of Couture’s promotional contract with the UFC. Zuffa claims that Couture still owes them two bouts on his contract, while Couture is arguing that the contract will expire in July, after its 16-month term concludes.

The decision will now allow HDNet’s motion for a summary judgment to be heard on June 2nd. HDNet first brought this suit against Zuffa in February, stating that they had a business arrangement with Couture that required a decision on his promotional contract status with the company. If this leg of Couture’s legal marathon goes his way, he’ll be an official free-agent once the one-year non-compete clause in his employment contract expires in October, and will finally be able to set up a fight with his personal white whale, Fedor Emelianenko.

In a separate lawsuit being heard in Las Vegas, Zuffa is suing Couture for breach of contract stemming from his (and Xtreme Couture’s) former association with the IFL. Zuffa is also seeking a ruling on Couture’s fight contract, though a judgment in Texas could affect Zuffa’s case. Or, for you law school geeks, “due to the legal doctrines of res judicata, collateral estoppel, and the full faith and credit clause, the first ruling issued will most likely decide the matter.” I don’t know what that means, and I don’t want to know. But come on, Zuffa — can we just let Fedor kick Randy’s ass so we can all move on with our lives?

So Wanderlei Silva’s English isn’t the best, but he’s improving. The necessity of a win in this match certainly doesn’t seem to be lost on him. He’s doing everything he can to prepare, including drinking his supplements. No comment there.

“The Dean of Mean” has his say after the jump.

(They’ve given you everything they had, and still you’d rather watch Top Chef.)

Adam Swift over at MMAPayout.com has an interesting look at the ratings history of The Ultimate Fighter. What he discovered — ratings for the show are getting steadily worse — should come as no surprise, but it is worthwhile to look at what it means for the show and for the UFC. First off, the cold hard numbers.

The show is currently averaging a 1.07 rating in its seventh season. That’s down from 1.12 last season, 1.18 in season five, and so on all the way back to season three’s peak of 1.69 (slightly better than season one’s 1.6). Among men aged 18-34 the show is doing a 1.6, up from 1.5 last season and on par with the 1.6 in season five. The ratings among that demographic group also peaked in season three with a 2.9, up from 2.2 in the first season and 2.5 in the second.

You don’t have to be an expert on TV or math to see that overall, TUF is on a steady ratings decline. While the show has been holding fairly strong among 18-34 year-old men during the last three seasons, it’s still clear that the initial luster of this series has worn off for the general public. The question is, what does it mean?

I wish I could embed this — but you’ll have to click the picture above to see a “leaked” clip from this Wednesday’s episode of The Ultimate Fighter, in which C.B. Dollaway playfully kicks Rampage during a training session, which spurs Rampage to take his pants off and challenge Dollaway to a submission grappling match. We’ll just say that he should have kept his pants on, and that Nick Klein is a dead man.

Speaking of The Ultimate Fighter 7, the undercard for the season finale (June 21st, live at 9 p.m. ET on SpikeTV) has been officially announced. Right now, the lineup looks like this:

Evan Tanner vs. Kendall Grove
Diego Sanchez vs. Luigi Fioravanti
[match between the show's two middleweight finalists]
Spencer Fisher vs. Jeremy Stephens
Josh Burkman vs. Dustin Hazelett
Marvin Eastman vs. Drew McFedries
Jeremy Horn vs. Dean Lister
Matt Arroyo vs. TBA?
Rob Yundt vs. TBA?

Other bouts featuring the show’s castmembers are also expected to be included in the three-hour telecast. I’ll sell my third testicle if Dollaway isn’t involved.

Another must-see: Remember that thing about Kimbo Slice presenting at the CMAs on Sunday? Well, it was even more awkward and uncomfortable than we thought it would be. Vid is after the jump…click if you dare.

FIGHT! Magazine’s June issue hits newsstands this week, containing articles on Jens Pulver and Lyoto Machida, as well as the following piece on the current state of competition in the MMA industry. Provided exclusively to CagePotato.com by FIGHT!, “Brave New World” features EliteXC’s Gary Shaw, Strikeforce’s Michael Afromowitz, and HDNet’s Mark Cuban weighing in on how they plan to survive and succeed in the vast shadow of the Octagon.

***

By Matthew Ross

First it was Royce vs. Ken on closed-circuit pay-per-view. Then came Forrest vs. Stephan on basic cable. Now? It’s the UFC vs. everybody else, coming to you live on enough channels to give your TiVo a nervous breakdown.

Welcome to a new era of MMA.

First, a recap. In 2005, Dana White and Spike TV revolutionized mixed martial arts with the advent of The Ultimate Fighter reality series, which introduced the channel’s historically frat boy-esque demographic to the world of organized ass-kicking. The results were rapid and dramatic. TUF skyrocketed up the Nielsen charts and Spike began airing live, high-quality UFC cards. What had once been a fringe sub-culture whose following in the U.S. consisted of fighters and a small but dedicated army of diehard fans had now become a mainstream attraction. New gyms began popping up in strip malls all over America. Guys like Chuck, Tito, and Randy became household names, and dudes could throw out terms like rear-naked choke and Thai clinch around their girlfriends without getting slapped in the face.

By the end of 2007, UFC championship bouts were regularly covered by the national news outlets, and the brightest stars had graced the covers of ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated, and Men’s Fitness. As Dana White would tell any reporter who’d listen: “We’ve arrived.” Not since Tony Alva, Stacy Peralta, and the rest of the Dogtown Z-Boys showed the world how to catch air with a piece of plywood and some polyurethane wheels had any sport ever gotten so big, so fast.

Not surprisingly, fans and journalists weren’t the only ones who caught wind of what was going down. Spike and the UFC may have gotten the ball rolling, but a bevy of broadcasters have teamed up with one or more of the savvy new MMA promotions to get a piece of the pie. While the empire created by Dana White and the Fertitta family shows no sign of ceding its title to any of the young upstarts, it’s impossible to deny that the UFC is no longer the only game in town. They may have the best overall roster of fighters and biggest brand recognition in the game, but things are about to get interesting.

(“The Prodigy” prepares himself to reenter civilized society)

Sometimes B.J. Penn says things that make me a little uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable in the bad way, more like uncomfortable in the way that I think what he just said was pretty awesome even if I still think maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to say it. His recent interview with Ariel Helwani at MMA Rated offered just such an occasion.

Ariel (who always manages to get the best out of fighters in his interviews) asked Penn about an infamous moment following his victory over Joe Stevenson:

Ariel Helwani: Let me ask you about your UFC 80 fight against Joe Stevenson. After defeating him you licked the blood of your gloves. What’s the symbolism behind licking the blood off the gloves because I find it fascinating?

BJ Penn: [laughs] I don’t know man. You know sometimes like you cross over and it’s just hard to come back. You cross over and then you’re on that side where you could kill somebody and it’s just hard to get back to the other side, so I was stuck over on that side when that happened.

Ariel Helwani: Afterwards we’re you like, ‘what the hell did I just do?’ Or do you mind licking another man’s blood?

BJ Penn: No, I think as a fighter you’re always just two different people. So when that side of me comes out I just accept it because I got my one side who’s just humble, cruisin’, hanging out, help out my friends, or this and that. Then I got my other side where I snap and I’m just on the other side and it takes a while for me to come back.

See? Uncomfortable, but also pretty cool. If you describe yourself that way to a high school guidance counselor, they’re calling the cops and making notes in the margins of your permanent record. If you’re a pro fighter and you say it in an internet radio interview, it just makes people more excited to watch you in action. Also, something to think about if you’re considering approaching Penn right after a fight. He may not have crossed back over yet, so watch yourself.

Let’s get something straight: Kimbo Slice is not Mike Tyson. He’s not a Tyson-like figure. There’s no “aura of Tyson” around him, no impending “Kimbo Slice’s Punch Out” ready to hit shelves. It’s a bad analogy. If you don’t believe me, just look at the people who keep making it.

First it was Gary Shaw, who kept bringing it up in last week’s media conference call. His thesis was, essentially, that while Kimbo doesn’t have many fights he does have the same kind of energy and popularity that made Tyson a star in the eighties and early nineties.

It’s not hard to see why Shaw likes this comparison. Just as Don King made a lot of money off “Iron Mike”, Shaw stands to do the same in regards to Kimbo. I don’t fault Shaw for drawing the comparison and attempting to force it on others. He’s a promoter. That’s what he does. But the rest of us should know better than to swallow that message without thinking about it.

For instance, Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports starts a recent column with this sentence: “It’s hardly a stretch to suggest that Kimbo Slice is the Mike Tyson of the 21st century.”

Really? It’s not a stretch to suggest that a guy with a 3-0 pro record is the 21st century version of a once-dominant heavyweight boxing champion? Seriously?

Let’s imagine for a moment that this is a true statement. If it were, it would prove only that the 21st century is dumber than the late 20th century. It would mean that we live in a time that values the cult of celebrity over actual accomplishment, and that we have become so obsessed with fame that we have lost the ability to make qualitative value judgments.

(Shaun Parker vs Tyler Bryan @ LFC 25. You can’t make this stuff up. Props to MMAScraps)

(From The Iron Ring: Some dude tries to secure an armbar and gets his head dribbled.)